So long, Brother
by thegirlwhocan
Summary: Following on from 8x19 'Taxi Driver' Short fic telling the story in the aftermath of the days events. Dean buries Benny's body. Inc. character death (well, obviously).


'So long, Brother'

Dean dug Benny's grave himself. The body had been in the boot, with the intention of its owner hoping back in the bones - but Benny wasn't coming back. The bones were just bones; soon they would be dust. When he and Sam had walked back to the car, tread slow with the weight of their hearts, they hadn't stopped for long. Speeding off to the nearest motel, Sam was out like a lamp within minutes of arrival, impacts of the second trial leaving him tired. His bones felt a thousand tonnes, his eyes lined with lead, and he found himself all but passed out on the bed in seconds. Dean watched over this, glad Sam seemed to be sleeping off the effects of purgatory, hoping his little brother would be able to shake the place. He hadn't managed to: it still haunted his dreams.

Seeing Sam had fallen asleep, the older Winchester clicked on the lamp in the corner, and grabbed his jacket. He'd tell Sam when he got back. Clicking off the main light, Dean breezed out the room, silently leaving his brother asleep. Driving back to Maine, he pulled over in the middle of nowhere, the night air biting against his cheek. The whole way there, the car had felt heavy. Weighed down not physically by the body in the boot, but heavy on the heart; the soul. Benny's presence seemed to fill the air, making it static, slowing time. Thirty minutes felt like thirty hours, and Dean felt every agonising second of it. The breath heavy on his chest felt compressed, his heartbeat too loud as the blood rushed through his ears. A cold sweat broke out on his palms, on the back of his neck: like a burning being was breathing down his back, a torment from a demon. But there was nothing there; it was all in his head. It was unbearable, the suffering, and Dean almost had to stop a few times for fear of crashing.

Finding the field where Benny had first came back, Dean located the spot his friend had once rested, setting to work digging again. Soon, his back ached and dirt was stuck under his fingernails and sweat soaked his face, but it felt right – it felt alive. It was a reminder he needed. He had left the body in the trunk as he dug, knowing that if he had seen it before, he would never had been able to get the job done. And as much as Benny claimed Dean didn't owe him anything; Dean owed his friend this. A proper burial, for the sacrifice Benny made. He owed the vampire an ending, although he swore it wasn't that; Dean refused to believe he'd seen the last of their cunning, joking, selfless vampirate. A memory he smiled at, pausing for a second. "Happy sailing" Dean said softly aloud, his breath clouding around him, as he looked up, although that's not where Benny was. He guessed it was a force of habit from all the years searching the sky for Cas: another friend who'd left him. That's all Castiel did anymore, leave him over and over, each time taking more of the hunter with him when he left. And Dean was tired of chasing him; of never knowing where they stood. But despite it all, damn it, all he wanted was for Cas to come home.

At least Benny had never let him down. Not once. Through Purgatory, he stayed by Dean's side and protected him, even when Cas had ran away. On Earth, he would have fought with Dean in every battle asked, but the Winchester lost him in the crowd and was distanced. Then, a call out of the blue joined them again, and Benny had been happy to hear from his friend. After months of loneliness and fighting himself, Dean reached out a hand to the man drowning in blood, and Benny had held fast. Even with the consequences, Benny was glad to have seen his friend again. Dean could hear the smile in his friend's voice when he'd called, the hope there; it tore him apart now. Benny had hoped the Winchester could save him, and all Dean had done was leave him dead. But for Sam, Benny had been willing to go. Sam, who had treated Benny like dirt and threatened his life when the two had met. Sam, who thought of the man as nothing more than another monster. Sam, who he knew so little about and had so much more reason to hate. But he didn't do it for Sam; not really, not at all.

Now the vampire was lost in Purgatory, maybe dead for good, maybe fighting alone. Dean didn't know. Sam had been vague when telling him, making it out like Benny had saved them, but didn't want to be saved. He only prayed they'd get him back one day soon. All too soon, the Winchester stood above a shallow grave, filthy, tense, staring down into the dirt. It was time: Dean stepped to the trunk, opening it to remove the body. The Winchester carried the form, heavy in his arms, but finding a renewed strength surging through his veins like a fire that consumed him. He knew he had to finish this. Laying the body in the ground, he collapsed as soon as it left his arms, visibly slumping where he stood. Closing his eyes to block out the sight, Dean was left in darkness. Forcing himself to breathe, the cold air freezing his lungs was like being plunged into a lake in December; it broke the ice, and filled him. The sensation of the cold woke him up, electrifying; he knew he was still alive - that meant he had to do this; carry on. Once his breathing was normal again, and the panic rising in his chest like his lungs had stopped working was gone, he re-opened his eyes. Dean Winchester's shattered green gaze met the dull dirt, and Benny still lay dead before him. Dean knew he should burn the bones; finish this once and for all, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Benny would come back, he told himself. The vampire always did. He'd see him again, Dean vowed. This was all just temporary. But it was hopeless and Dean knew it; he was just lying to himself by saying these things. Still, if there was even a snowball's chance his friend was still alive, Dean would take it. And if Benny came back, he'd need his body. It was a risk worth taking.

Knowing time was vital; Dean started to take up his shovel again to cover the body in dirt. The grave was shallow, easy to escape from, but still, the hunter knelt and pressed a blade into the vampire's hand in case he needed it. With this done, Dean started piling the earth on top of his friend, a blanket to protect and bury. When only Benny's face was visible, Dean halted, waiting for something. But nothing changed. "You bastard, you knew you weren't coming back, didn't you?" he asked angrily, staring defiantly down at the pale face, half-expecting Benny to get up and hit him. He'd take that right now, rather than the silence on his friend's part. "We could have helped you, you stupid son of a bitch! Everything could have been good" he shouted, cutting himself off by shaking his head. Dean's hands shook with rage, and he dropped the shovel, which thudded to the ground beside him. His whole face trembled as he looked down; knowing Benny would be laughing somewhere, as he always did. I life spent laughing, trying to fit in: ended with a sacrifice to help out a brother. Dean was his brother, just as much as anyone – if there was one thing the Winchester's preached, it was that family wasn't just blood.

"Come on, man. Just get up, we can still fix this. Just get up" he pleaded, a catch finally working its way into his throat, the desperation no longer masked by the anger. "I can't do this alone, man. Sam, he's not good, no matter what he says. These trials are having an effect, and I don't think I can carry him by myself anymore." A tear slid down Dean's cheek, which he brushed away, sniffing loudly to hide his discomfort. "I used to be able to, hell, there were years where that was all I did, but I can't anymore. Things have changed too much; I'm not strong enough. I need you, I need a friend." The hunter gazed desperately down at his fallen comrade, still pale and unresponsive. "And you're the best one I've got, Benny. _The only one_. 'Cause Bobby- he's gone for good. Cas -who knows where he's at, but then he always does this. He leaves me. I got no one I can rely on except you, and I let you down. Please" Tears now filled his eyes, casting a mask across his face. Water was meant to purify, to clean; but tears were too salty to wash things away, too human to be pure. The only purpose they served was to release the pain trapped behind tired eyes.

A cold feeling started to spread through Dean's gut, like ice, clawing its way through his gut outwards, spreading through him until he was numb. He knew that feeling too well: it was guilt. It was not a feeling he liked, knowing he had let someone he cared for down again, like he always did. Dean put the pressure of having to save everyone on himself; and it doubled in meaning when it was with family. If he couldn't even save those who mattered most, what chance did he have saving the world? Every day when he woke up and looked in the mirror, guilt for every person he'd failed was all he saw staring back. His parents, Bobby, Jo and Ellen – Benny would just be another name to add to a long list. He hated guilt, how it ate away at you. There was no way to fight it, no high to beat that low, no amount of people he could save to forget the ones he didn't. It killed him, it really did. Now, all he could see in moments between sleep would be Benny, the times they'd spent, the moments shared: then Benny, alone in Purgatory, fighting for Sam and Bobby, dying. It would happen over and over. He knew it, and in some ways the anticipation cut deeper than the nightmares.

"Come on, Benny. If you get up, I swear it can get better. The blood lust, everything – I will help you in any way that I can. I shouldn't have left you in the first place, and I swear I won't again _if you'll just get up_" his voice gained volume and desperation as he went on. "You can be normal, Benny. Who cares about the blood? We can make you milkshakes, yeah? Blood slushies. You won't hurt anyone, I promise. And you can have a home: come live with me and Sam in the bunker. Did I tell you about it? It's amazing: huge and safe and ours. Yours too, just get up. Please, get up!" He shouted, wanting to shake Benny by the shoulders, but they were buried. Bargaining would get him nowhere if his friend wasn't listening. But he couldn't accept it; he couldn't accept Benny was dead. That would mean he'd led him by the hand to the slaughter, and his friends death was entirely on his hands. Dean had asked him to do this. Benny was dead as a direct result of his request: It was all on him.

"It's my fault" he said softly; face clearing in realization, eyes bright instead of hazy. It came to him all of a sudden, like a thunderbolt, and he looked up in clarity. "You're _freakin'_ dead – and that's on me. You were my friend, remember that, but don't forget that I let you down. Like I let everyone else down. Because that's who I am, I'm a disease, I poison people. As soon as you met me, you didn't stand a chance" Dean spat bitterly, as he thought back on everything else he'd ruined. Cas had been a shining angel before they had meet. Sam had been happy at college before he'd shown up. Then Dean came into their lives, like a biblical plague – now look where they were. Broken, beaten, bleeding shells of who they'd been, after the life had been sucked out of them, drained away. There was nothing left. "You should have run, Benny. As soon as I cut you lose, you should have run for the hills to get away from me. Maybe then you'd be alive. But I ruined you too, didn't I? Being who I am. I abandoned you, and you needed me. You asked for help, and I turned you away for Sam. After all you'd done for me, I dismissed you. I'm so sorry for that. I was the monster here, not you," he paused, feeling the tears sliding down his face, before realizing he'd been crying the whole time, "never you."

"You were a freakin' hero, man, what you did. Always a self-sacrificing bastard, getting them safe and staying behind – wonder who you learned that from?" he asked bitterly, knowing the answer was from him. But Dean was wrong: he hadn't taught Benny how to sacrifice himself, he'd taught him about family and humanity; that some things were worth dying for. Of course, there was no one to tell Dean this, so he was stuck feeling crappy. "You were worth more than this, Benny boy. I should've saved you. If there's a chance, I'll get you back – I swear." Promised were as useless as blossom on the breeze, numberless and meaningless. They didn't change a damn thing: he still had to finish burying his best friend. Too early: it was too soon to say goodbye. But it was true: the good do die young.

Because Benny had no reason to help Sam, apart from for the good of it. He knew Dean would be broken without his brother, so he didn't even question it – there was nothing to ask, only something to do. There was never a doubt in his mind about his answer: if Dean needed his help, he would gladly give it. Sam might have been a dick to him at times, but he didn't deserve to be stuck there either. Benny was good in every sense of the world, and acted not in self-interest, to gain anything, like it had been at the beginning when he first approached Dean in Purgatory – but because it was right. Things had changed; he had changed. When they first met, Benny had helped to get himself out of Purgatory, but by the time they parted, he helped only _for_ Dean. Because the hunter was his friend, and he didn't have many. Hell, Benny didn't have _anybody_ else.

Dean nodded firmly, lifting the shovel purposely to finish this. Pushing the last remaining scraps of dirt into the grave, Benny's face disappeared from view, and it was done. The burial of a hero, witnessed only from a broken man, in the dead of night in a lonely field on the edge of nowhere. It was a hunter's funeral, so to say: Benny died protecting humanity, and a pair of hunters, so he got the honours of one. He probably would have laughed at that; he wouldn't have been proud, as he never acted for admiration of respect, and he didn't give a damn what the hunters thought of him apart from one, but to Dean it said a lot. It was the respect he paid his father, and it was the honour Benny earned. Going back to the trunk, he picked out a wooden cross from the back, which had been in there for a forgotten reason, left to rot. It didn't have a purpose until now. Walking back to the grave, the only sign anything had changed the unsettled dirt under his boots, Dean planted the cross in the ground at the head of the grave, marking it out. It was a shitty grave marker: the wood was splintering, and it would break down and rot in the rain eventually, but it was enough. It was enough.

Dean thought about doing something stupid, like standing and saluting, for a brief moment, but dismissed it as corny. It was over and he had no idea what to do. Sighing heavily, the events taking a toll as he felt the energy drain from him, he simply reached out a hand to touch the wooden grave marker. His fingers brushed the cross gently, trembling, before he determinedly pushed himself to his feet, staring at the grave momentarily before walking stiffly from the field, getting into his car, and driving until his break lights were just an amber glow in the distance. Dean Winchester parted with three final words, spoken quietly and shakily, restrained so he wouldn't break down again. "So long, Brother"


End file.
